Birregurra, Victoria

I had envisaged a peaceful 15 kilometre cycle from Deans Marsh (which has a pretty little oval but no scoreboard) to the Birregurra ground. Alas, I hadn’t counted on September’s swooping magpies.

Birregurra is a township of 500 people, at the foot of the Otway Ranges in western Victoria.

The scoreboard is a neat and tidy, and very compact, construction built of pine logs, reflecting the local logging industry. (The coaches’ and interchange steward’s boxes are also solid constructions. It’d take a mighty wind to knock them down.)

Birregurra, the Saints, play in the Colac and District Football League, west of Geelong. The Saints lost the 2010 grand final to Irrewarra-Beeac, the Bombers, in an enthralling finish. The Geelong Advertiser reported:

Irrewarra-Beeac sealed a third straight CDFL premiership but received a major scare in a pulsating grand final at Colac’s Central Reserve on Saturday (11 September).

The Bombers prevailed by two points against a fast finishing Birregurra side that booted the last six goals of the match after trailing by 38 points early in the final quarter.

It was an amazing turnaround given Irrewarra-Beeac’s dominant third quarter that many at the ground believed had killed off the contest.

The Birregurra Festival each October includes wood-chopping, snake handling, pig racing, and dog jumping. But, hopefully, no magpie swooping.

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Sundries

"People can say what they like. There is only one thing that matters in AFL football and that's the scoreboard and it determines so many things. It determines coaches' destinies, club futures and where you are on the ladder." Denis Pagan, North Melbourne premiership coach, The Age, 5 May, 2016

Call us old-fashioned, but banners, club songs and plenty of goals - with or without giant birds flying out of multiple scoreboards - create the basic ingredients for a perfect day or night oout. - Caroline Wilson, The Age, 9 August 2014

"I didn't like the idea of them pulling down the scoreboard because I thought that should have been heritage listed." Bob Hill, Collingwood scoreboard attendant at Victoria Park from the late 1960s to 1999. The Age 24 May, 2014.

Scoreboards are stubborn things but they've been around a long time. Stats are always playing catch up.